You’ve done the research. Upper management has approved your proposal to bring storytelling into your organization. Congrats, the easiest part of your journey is over. Now comes the hard part–choosing a business storytelling partner to help you.
The first indication of trouble arrives after your Google search for “business storyteller” sends you wading through its 12,000 results–none of which describe business storytelling the same way. Some sites approach the topic from an entertainment-industry perspective, some extoll the virtues of mythology, and others base their work on brain science. Some business storytellers use story as a tool for personal development, sales, leadership, or marketing. The differences vary so wildly that you’re left with a dizzying question, “How do I find a business storyteller that fits my company’s needs?”
A storyteller’s approach falls between two ends of a continuous spectrum: art and science. The distinction offers a way to evaluate where business storytellers sit between the artists, who view storytelling spiritually, and the scientists, who see it canonically.
Let’s take a closer look:
Scientists study facts; Artists practice theory
Scientists love data; Artists love media
Scientists follow rules; Artists work within guidelines
Scientists rely on reason; Artists use intuition
Scientists believe in hierarchy; Artists believe in the qualities of leadership
Before it can develop employee storytelling skills, a company must choose a story partner that complements its corporate culture. So, which part of the Science/Art spectrum best represents yours?
Oh, and if you hadn’t guessed by it now, I majored in Science and minored in Art. Or, on the Science/Art scale, I fall about here:
Twenty engineering students simmered in the sauna-like classroom. Instead of listening to the engineering lecture, we daydreamed out the open window, longing to be with the students playing frisbee on the quad.
Professor Farmer turned from his blackboard and commented on the scene. “Philosophy students,” he snarked. “Come back in ten years and they’ll still be out there.”
We laughed, of course, much like generations of scientists who had probably laughed before. I bet the disc-tossers on the quad were making similar comments about the propeller-heads in the windows. And yet, although these two groups have lobbed barbs at one another for centuries, my vantage point as an engineer/storyteller has shown me that they’re much closer than they think.
Engineering is an applied science that’s built upon the bedrock of all discovery–the Scientific Method. Story structure is the way that humans convey meaning. And never the twain shall meet, right?
Perhaps, but what if I told you that story-structure and the scientific method are one in the same? Don’t believe me? Let’s take a closer look.
Once upon a time Every day… Then one day… And because of that… And because of that… Until finally… And ever since then…
And the Scientific Method looks like this.
Observe
Hypothesize
Test, evaluate, and iterate
Conclude
Do you see it?
Once upon a time… Every day we observe patterns. Then one day that pattern changes. And because of that, we seek to understand why. And because of that, we hypothesize. And because of that, we test, evaluate, and iterate. Until finally we conclude with new knowledge. And ever since then, we use that conclusion as a premise for the next time we go through the process.
The thing that binds art and science is our quest to understand the world around us and to then explain those things to others.
Just sayin’.
Hey, anyone in for a game of frisbee?
Note: Many people (me included) were introduced to the Story Spine through Emma Coats’ The 22 rules of storytelling, according to Pixar. However, my good friend and fellow business storyteller Kathy Klotz-Guest pointed out that the original source didn’t come from Pixar, but from Kenn Adams, a giant in the world of Improv. And so, from here on, I’ll be thanking Emma for bringing the Story Spine to my attention, but will be referencing Kenn as its original source.
I designed the StoryHow™ PitchDeck to help convert ideas, messages, and presentations into stories. But what if we turned the process around and used it to deconstruct an existing one? Watch this 38-second video and then we’ll use the StoryHow™ method to break it down.
Stories consist of three components: roles, events, and influences. This little story has three roles, eight events, and a slew of influences.
Roles:
Boy in a sports car
Girl passenger in the sports car
Man in a muscle car
Events:
The sports car pulls next to the muscle car
The boy revs his engine
The man ignores
The boy flips the bird
The girl smiles
The man flashes his badge
The girl laughs then winks
The cop pauses then pulls away slowly
Roles and events reveal the facts of a story, but research suggests that audiences are most interested in the motivations of the characters. So, let’s take a closer look at the influences affecting each event.
The sports car pulls next to the muscle car
A sports car enters the frame with two people. It pulls next to a muscle car that contains a single occupant. What can you tell me about the characters?
The boy: Did you assume that the boy is from a wealthy family? Such an assumption would be consistent with the type of car that he’s driving and the way that he’s dressed. What about his personality? Did you think he was cocky, arrogant, or just being a jerk?
The girl: What’s the girl’s relationship to the boy? Sister? Girlfriend? Based on the situation and information provided, did you assume that she was his girlfriend?
The man: Did you make any assumptions about the man? Perhaps you thought that he was a working-class guy? What about his marital status? Since he’s in a muscle car instead of a minivan, perhaps you assumed that he’s single? What about his age? Since he’s not old enough to be experiencing a midlife crisis, perhaps you thought of him as a “car enthusiast” who does his own mechanic work?
Humans make assumptions. It’s in our nature to interpret the world around us. We can’t help it. So, if you made any of the assumptions listed above, be mindful of the fact that you fabricated each one based upon your prior knowledge of similar situations. In other words, your Neural Story Net manufactured implicit “facts” to augment the explicit ones.
Let’s continue with our implied facts.
The boy revs his engine
Why did the boy rev his engine? Was he just being a jerk? Perhaps he believed that his light Porsche could outrun the man’s heavy Camaro? Maybe he was bluffing? Either way, audiences understand that Vroom! Vroom! is the colloquial sign for “Hey, you wanna race?”
The man ignores
Why did the man ignore the challenge? Perhaps you assumed that he has the wisdom to know better than to street race?
The boy flips the bird
Why did the boy use such an inflammatory gesture? Was he trying to goad the man’s inner caveman into reacting instinctively?
The girl smiles
Why did the girl smile at the cop? Perhaps she knows that nothing threatens the male ego more than a challenge while in the presence of a pretty woman? Or, maybe she’s sending a message, “So, what are you gonna do, big fella?”
The man flashes his badge
Why did the man show his badge instead of defending his honor (and peeling out) or eating his pride (by letting the punk win)? Was it to make a point? Embarrass the boy in front of his girlfriend? Give him a fair warning?
The girl laughs then winks
Did the girl’s laugh add insult to the boy’s already injured ego? And why did she wink at the man? Was it a private communication of her approval or another message, “So, what are you gonna do now, big fella?”
The cop pauses then pulls away slowly
The cop paused before his slow departure. What was he doing? Contemplating his options to issue a warning, write a ticket, or impound the boy’s car? Or, maybe he remembered the last time he did something stupid to impress a girl?
Finally, what did he accomplish at the end of the story? Did he score a double goal, essentially teaching the boy a memorable lesson while simultaneously maintaining the girl’s admiration? Do you think he felt satisfied as he drove away? How did you feel about his solution?
Storytellers deliver just the right amount of information to convey meaning. Had the storyteller decided to include all of the implied details that we’ve discussed in this article, this video would have been painfully too long to watch. However, by considering the audience’s role in telling the story, the storyteller has maintained a perfect balance between explicit and implicit information.
This video illustrates how one can use both explicit and implicit information to create stories that are rich in detail even if the story is poor on time. How rich, you might ask? This little story employed 23 of the 60 StoryHow™ PitchDeck Cards:
Role cards used in the story:
Card #2: Protagonist: The man in the muscle car who is minding his own business until the Porsche shows up
Card #3: Antagonist: The boy who decides to challenge the man
Card #4: Minor Characters: The girl in the passenger seat, the sports car, and the muscle car
Card #6: Setting: Two cars at an intersection
Card #9: Catalyst: The girl who’s influencing two guys who want to impress her
Card 11: Fatal Flaw: The boy’s immaturity in thinking that impressing a girl is more important than his or her safety.
Event cards used in the story:
Card # 16: Initial Impulse: The boy challenges the man to a road dual
Card #17: The Ending: The man teaches the boy a lesson while simultaneously maintaining the girl’s admiration
Card #20: External Conflict: Street racing is dangerous
Card #27: The Twist: The man is actually a cop
Card #28: The Mismatched Response: Rather than stepping on the gas pedal passionately, the man flashes his badge matter-of-factly
Card # 30: Backstory: Although not explained explicitly, the storyteller left enough clues for the audience to assemble multiple backstories for themselves.
Influence cards used in the story:
Card #31: Jeopardy: External: Street racing is dangerous. Internal: A bruised ego
Card #32: Emotional Choice: The male ego in the midst of a female
Card #33: Logical Choice: The man’s decision to flash his badge. Both the boy and man’s decisions to back down.
Card # 40: Throughline: Although the motivations of the characters weren’t explained explicitly, enough clues were left for the audience to figure them out on their own. The boy wants to impress the girl. The man wants to teach the boy a lesson while retaining the girl’s admiration.
Card #42: Who Knows What?: The storyteller chose to hide the cop’s identity from the boy, girl, and audience.
Card #43: Mistaken Identity: The boy mistook the cop as Joe Shmoe.
Technique cards used in the story:
Card #47: Meaning: The moral of the story: Be careful when picking a fight…you never know with whom you’re challenging.
Card # 54: Timing/Order: Consider how the story changes if the storyteller had chosen to let the audience in on the joke that the man was a cop. The audience would have felt different about the boy…seeing him as less of a punk and more of a dumb kid about to get his comeuppance.
Card #56: Irony: Of all the people the boy could have challenged, what are the odds that he pulls next to an off-duty cop? Fate? Karma?
Card #57: Symbolism: A boy in an expensive car screams youth and privilege. The badge represents authority. The girl’s wink communicates a shared moment.
Card #60: Contrast: The contrast of youth vs. age, inexperience vs. experience.
Remember that there are always two stories: the story being told and the one being heard. The best storytellers focus on both.
So, what about your own business stories? Think about the roles, events, and influences. Ask yourself about the story being told and the one being heard. Use the StoryHow™ method to deconstruct it. And if you have a copy of the StoryHow™ PitchDeck, identify the cards that are applicable to the story. Perhaps you can learn something to make your story better?
Note: The original movie clip is 1:06 long. Through the magic of YouTube embedding, though, I cut the first 28 seconds because they did nothing to advance the story. Feel free to watch the whole thing to see what I mean.
I’ve read much about the links between the brain and story, but nothing comes close to the work of Kendall Haven. He’s curated the results of over 1,000 different research studies in his seminal book, Story Proof, confirming undeniable connections between story, learning, and memory. And his most recent book, Story Smart, describes the only work that I know of which measured brain activity (EEG), physical effects (cardio & skin), and chemical changes (oxytocin and dopamine) while people listened to variations of a baseline story– all with the goal to understand what makes a story both interesting and memorable.
His 30 years of research have culminated into a simple, yet mind-blowing conclusion:
The only way that we learn is through story-structure. Period.
Haven teaches that our brains use story-structure to separate the stuff we should commit to memory from trivia. And he’s isolated the part of the brain that’s responsible for this feat. “The Neural Story Net,” he says, “turns sensory information into a story that makes sense to you.”
The Neural Story Net (NSN) sits between our five senses and the conscious part of our brains. Its job is to make sense of the random data that enters through sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. The NSN treats all of this real-time information like jigsaw puzzle pieces. If a piece fits with one of our memories, it’s added to the picture. If it doesn’t, the NSN will do whatever necessary to force-fit the piece, including cutting, chipping, or morphing.
And if that last sentence doesn’t trouble you, consider that this force-fitting process is the default condition. In other words, it’s safe to assume that the messages you send are not the messages being received.
“Research shows that we humans don’t really hear the exact words you say, anyway. We really hear the gist. We then reform that gist into words inside our own brains, using our own vocabulary. Then we ascribe our self-created personalized version back to the source, thinking that our own version is actually word for word, what the speaker said.” 1
But Haven doesn’t stop there. If listeners are assembling their own versions of your story in their heads, “…that forces your audience to kick their NSN and their Banks of Prior Knowledge into overdrive to fill in the gaps with what makes sense to them. Research experiments consistently identify two problems with that: 1) they are virtually always wrong with what they create and 2) their version is almost always more negative toward your organization, character, and information than you intended.” 2
Reread those last two points:
they are virtually always wrong with what they create–which is not helping your cause.
their version is almost always more negative toward your organization, character, and information. In other words, your carefully-crafted messages may be bolstering deep biases against you, your information, or your organization. Ouch.
So, what are professional communicators to do if their messages are left to the whim of the Neural Story Net? Haven recommends that messages should be delivered using the NSN’s native language: story-structure. Doing so simplifies gist-extraction and minimizes force-fitting.
Therefore, to ensure parity between the message delivered and message received, remember that nothing happens until someone makes your story their story.
Notes:
Haven, Kendall (2014-10-14). Story Smart: Using the Science of Story to Persuade, Influence, Inspire, and Teach (pp. 17-18). ABC-CLIO. Kindle Edition.
Haven, Kendall (2014-10-14). Story Smart: Using the Science of Story to Persuade, Influence, Inspire, and Teach (p. 51). ABC-CLIO. Kindle Edition.
Don’t let the prices for Story Proof ($35) and Story Smart ($40) dissuade you. By the time you finish them, you’ll never look at your writing the same way again.
“Where do you draw the line between storytelling and the truth?” a student asked me after my lecture at the USC Marshall School of Business last Monday. Although I sensed where the question was going, I asked for a clarification.
She glanced sheepishly at her fellow MBA candidates. “Well, I know it’s part of doing business, but how far should companies take storytelling?”
“Stretching the truth is not a good business strategy,” I said. “And using the power of story to do so is even worse.”
I offered her a quote from Daniel Wallace, the author of the novel, Big Fish.
“A storyteller makes up things to help other people; a liar makes up things to help himself.”
I love this quote because it focusses on the intent of the storyteller instead of the story itself. If a storyteller is motivated by informing, enlightening, or bringing meaning, she’s put the needs of the audience before her own. Yet, if another storyteller wants to embellish, deceive, or spin, he’s put his needs first.
Storytelling, as with any human invention, is morally agnostic. Dynamite, invented by the Nobel Prize’s namesake, can be used for either construction or destruction–which can only be determined by the will of the user. We don’t have to look far beyond today’s headlines to see the power of story being used for both good and evil.
One of my favorite pieces of content marketing comes from the 1920s when financial institutions wanted to encourage their customers to save money. They turned to George S. Clayson, a financial writer who taught personal finance lessons through little parables. Banks and insurance companies initially distributed these stories as pamphlets, but demand for them rose so high that Clayson published his collection of parables as a book. If longevity is an indication of a book’s success, consider that The Richest Man In Babylon is still in print eighty-six years later.
Most companies dismiss fictional story forms because they assume that fiction means fake, and fake means deception. But just because a story is written as fiction, it doesn’t mean that its message is untrue. Aesop taught life lessons through stories featuring talking animals. We know that tortoises and hares don’t have street races, but that doesn’t negate the fundamental truth that slow and steady wins the race.
It all comes down to the intent of the storyteller.
The session moderator closed the doors after the room had reached its standing room only capacity of two hundred forty. Such is a normal occurrence for popular conference sessions, but this one was different. This audience, consisting of professional B2B communicators, had flocked to hear a MarketingProfs B2B Forum session entitled: “From Storytelling to Story-selling: How to Tell a B2B Story that is “This American Life” Compelling.“
I smiled from ear-to-ear as Bobby Lehew mesmerized this B2B audience with the oral traditions of his Chickasaw and Choctaw Indian Nation heritage. He told stories that connected emotionally, removing any lingering doubts about storytelling and it’s power to connect. However, about halfway through the session, I sensed some audience anxiety, as attendees wrestled with the concept of connecting ancient lore with their B2B stories. And that’s when Bobby hit them with his $50,000 slide.
Every presentation has a $50,000 slide–the one that contains the takeaway of the day. Bobby’s slide, delivered with the timely precision of a master storyteller, said:
“Every order sold is a story waiting to be told.”
At least thirty cell phones were thrust into the air to photograph the slide. Others documented the phrase through their iPads, computers, and Moleskine notebooks.
Each marketer recognized the brilliance in the phrase. Purchase orders are a great place to look for stories. They contain names, addresses, telephone numbers and websites to research. They orient story seekers toward the who, what, where, when and why of customers who use their products every day. Some customers have good results. Others don’t. Some are learning, doing, and persevering–all which make up great story-stuff.
As a marketer, how many times have you looked through your company’s orders for story-starter ideas? When was the last time you accompanied a rep on a sales call? When was the last time you listened in on a customer service call?
Bobby Lehew reminded us of something that’s easy to forget. More B2B stories will be found through speaking with our customers than by speaking with each other.
And if that last sentence doesn’t trouble you, consider that this force-fitting process is the default condition. In other words, it’s safe to assume that the messages you send are not the messages being received.
